THE MAN AT THE INN.
At length the friendly tavern of Master Willis came into view. When I
had reached it, weary and travel-stained, I dismounted, calling for a
stable lad to see to the horse. I would but stop, I thought, to get a
change of raiment, snatch a hasty bite, and hurry on to greet Lucile.
“Have the dead returned?” quoth Willis, joyfully, as I strode into the
big room.
“Nay; ’tis myself in the flesh,” I answered, “as you may know, when I
tell you that I am most woefully hungry. Some meat and drink, I pray
you, for I must away soon again.”
The tavern keeper bestirred himself to much advantage, and it was not
long ere there was plenty on the round table. I drew up a chair, and,
while I lingered somewhat over the food, I had time to look about the
familiar apartment.
In one corner I noticed a man seated. His legs were stretched out in
lazy comfort, one foot crossed over the other, while, with a riding whip
in his hand, he switched at his boots. He seemed not to notice me, so
that I had a chance to take a good look at him. Then I knew him for the
same man who had ridden down to the beach, the day the sloops sailed;
the mysterious messenger of the night, the man with whom I had nearly
come to sword strokes in the Governor’s room. I own I was startled, for
I could not help feeling that something portended of no happy omen.
Once he caught me looking at him, but he said nothing until I had
finished. Then he rose, lifted his hat from his head, and snapped his
whip so that it cracked like a pistol shot.
“Good day to you, Captain Amherst,” he said. “May I have the honor of a
few words?”
As he finished he smiled, and, though I could not tell why, I hated him
for it.
“As many as you wish,” I answered, “but I am pressed for time now. Will
not another occasion do? I----”
“Some other time might serve,” he interrupted, “but I am on the King’s
business, and you know that ever presses us men of the sword.”
Not very graciously I led the way to my former apartment, from which I
had been absent so long. Wearily I sat down, pointing to another chair,
opposite, for my visitor. He took it, doubled the riding whip in his
hands, and, with a slight bow to me, said:
“I have been waiting for your return, Captain Amherst,” and he seemed to
hesitate over the name. “I have waited ever since you sailed against St.
Johns.”
“Then you had a wearisome delay,” I responded, little heeding my own
words, for I was in haste to be away. “One, I fear, not much to your
profit or pleasure.”
“I did not look for profit,” was his reply. Then he spoke slowly, and
with a mocking, sneering tone. “But it was pleasant enough, tarrying
here--with Lucille!”
I sprang to my feet and half drew my sword, for there was more than
insult in his words; there was a threat.
“Lucille!” I cried, leaning forward and peering into his handsome,
sneering face.
“Aye, Lucille,” he answered coolly, and he never glanced at me, but
played with the buckle of his sword belt.
“We had many happy hours together,” he went on; “she and I, while I was
waiting for you.”
“Damn you!” I shouted; “what means this! Know you that----”
“Aye, I know,” was his response, and then he looked me full in the face.
He seemed to drop his jaunty, careless air, as, at midnight, a dancer
casts aside his mask. “I know,” he repeated slowly. “I know you, and I
know Lucille.”
My sword was out in an instant, and, with its point, I menaced his
heart. But, with a coolness that I could not help admiring, he never
moved, nor did he seem at all alarmed.
“Draw, sir!” I cried out. “Draw, in the devil’s name, or I’ll run you
through where you stand! The Governor is not here now to stay our hands.
Who are you, crossing my path so often?”
“There is time enough to draw my sword when I have finished,” he
replied, never taking his eyes from my face. “So if you will but put up
your weapon, perchance there may be no need to take it from the scabbard
again, Sir Francis Dane!”
If he had struck me I could not have been more startled than at the
sound of that name. My knees grew weak from very fear, and I sank back
into my chair, while my sword which I had held outstretched, clattered
to the oak floor.
That my secret had been laid bare, after so many years, when I supposed
it safely buried across the sea, shook me as a tempest might a sapling.
“Have I touched you with the point?” asked the stranger, as he cut the
air with the little whip.
“Yes! A thousand times, yes!” I cried, and I leaped at him, and would
have run him through on the instant with my sword, which I recovered
from the floor, had he not nimbly sprang behind the bed.
There he stood, his face working with emotion, his eyes glaring, and his
hand clasped so tightly on his sword hilt that his knuckles went white
with the strain. I lunged at him again and again, fiercely, blindly,
almost, until, in very shame at thrusting at one who had no weapon out,
I stopped and stood breathless, like one who had run far.
“Why do you stand there, silent?” I panted. “Are you a man, or----?”
“Perchance a witch,” he replied, with an air of easy assurance. “I hear
there be many hereabouts. Indeed, no later than yesterday three were
hanged on the hill yonder.”
I started, in sudden fear, for his words brought back to my mind the
witch trial, some months past.
For a space there was silence in the chamber, and I could hear our
breaths, as we stood gazing at each other. Then he spoke.
“Well, what is it to be?” he asked. “Peace or war?”
“War!” I cried. “War to the end, now that you know what you do!”
“Very good, then,” was his answer. “But, perchance you will hearken to
me for a little. Proclaim an armistice, as it were?”
I nodded, as one in a dream, for I seemed to be asleep, watching all
these things transpire, but taking no part in them.
“What would you say,” he went on, “if I told you that I held a warrant
from His Most Gracious Majesty, King William, for the apprehension of
one Sir Francis Dane, or, as he is known now, Captain Edward Amherst?
The charge being high treason.”
“What would I say? Why, that you lied most damnably.”
“Have a care!” he whispered, rather than spoke, and his hand fell to his
sword hilt with a quick motion. “Have a care! I have suffered much from
you. Do not tempt me too far.”
“I am no traitor,” I said proudly, “for I have but now returned from the
defense of Pemaquid, which, though it fell was only given up in the face
of heavy odds, and because the garrison would not stand by me. I am no
traitor. Ask the men who tramped the woods and sailed the sloops with
me.”
“Then this must be in error,” was his sudden exclamation. He threw a
parchment to me across the bed, behind which he still was, and, while I
unrolled it he came out, and sat in the chair again. I recognized the
royal arms of England.
“Read,” he said. And then he settled back in his chair most comfortably,
as one disposed to listen to some pleasant tale.
I read. True enough it was a warrant for Sir Francis Dane, formerly of
the army of “that arch-traitor” Duke Monmouth. All the way through I
read the scroll, my heart growing heavier as I proceeded.
“Does it suffice?” he asked.
“Aye,” I answered, moodily.
I turned toward him.
“It is enough,” I went on, pacing back and forth. “But, look you, sir, I
know not your name. Not that it matters greatly.”
“I am Sir George Keith, at your service, and at that of His Majesty,” he
said, smiling and bowing low.
“Well, then, Sir George Keith, what is to prevent me from destroying
this warrant? From casting it into the fire, thus----?”
With a quick movement I tossed the parchment into the blazing pile of
logs on the hearth, Willis having kindled them, though there was little
need of warmth.
The sheepskin burned in a sudden puff of flame, but Sir George never
turned his head to see what became of it.
“It was but a copy,” he said.
“Then what is to prevent me from killing you?” was my next question.
“Would one tainted with treason, add to his crimes and attack the King’s
messenger? Or if he dared, that same bearer of the royal warrant might
have somewhat to say touching on the killing. I am no schoolboy to be
frightened by words!”
I knew he spoke the truth, and I sat down again.
“Perchance,” went on Sir George, “I may weary you with the tale, but I
will relate it, and if I tire you I pray your pardon.”
Then while the shadows grew long outside, and the darkness settled
deeper and deeper over the earth, I listened as one not fully awake, who
hears a voice afar off.
“There is little need,” said Sir George, “of telling that which you know
better than I do. How you were of the personal guard of Monmouth, and
how, when the last battle went against him you fell into the hands of
King James’ men, that day on Sedgemoor field. Of your trial before his
Worshipful Honor, Judge Jeffreys, and his merciful sentence that you be
sold as a slave, instead of being hanged, as you, and all that army of
ragamuffins deserved, I need not speak. You recall how Lord Cordwaine
begged that you might be given to him so he could sell you into slavery.
You managed to escape from prison, none knew how, before Lord Cordwaine
had secured you, and you fled.
“The noble lord reported his loss to His Majesty, and, being in great
favor then, the King granted a royal warrant for you, that, wherever you
could be found, you might be brought back to England as a traitor, to be
dealt with as Lord Cordwaine might elect. That was seven years ago.
“Of your wanderings in that time I have heard a little. How, having sold
your sword to prince after prince in Europe, you finally came to
America, and offered your services to His Excellency, Sir William Phips,
under the name of Captain Amherst. I have had a long search for you.
“Do not think that I followed you over seas all these years merely to
gratify the revenge, or satisfy the whim of Lord Cordwaine. He might rot
in hell for all I cared,” and Sir George, with a vicious snarl to the
words, doubled his riding whip until it snapped in twain.
“No,” he proceeded, “I sought you for myself; for my own ends.”
I looked at him, trying to fathom whither he might be drifting. He had
no more of the careless air, and his tone had changed to a low, intense
and rapid one.
“Can you call to mind,” he asked, “when the last charge was made at the
ditch that proved so disastrous to Monmouth’s forces?”
“Yes,” I said, my memory going back to the fierce struggle between
farmers and religious fanatics on one side, and trained soldiers on the
other.
“Do you remember how, when a dark haired lad, aye he was but a boy,
opposed you as you urged your horse on?”
“Yes,” I answered, as one awaking from a sleep.
“Then,” came from Sir George suddenly, “call to mind also how you cut
him down with a single stroke, though you might have disarmed and spared
him, for he could not have prevailed against you. His life’s blood dyed
the marsh, and he was trampled under foot, a shapeless mass. Do you
recall that?” The words were hurled at me with every look of hate.
“It was in a fair fight,” I said, somewhat sorry for the lad. “I had to
save myself. It was give and take, no quarter asked or granted; no time
to parry.”
“I saw the blow. I marked who gave it,” went on Sir George. “Had not my
horse fallen under me then you would ne’er have dealt another. A sudden
surge in the battle carried me from you, but I knew I could remember
your face, your form; and I vowed----,” a strong emotion seized the
man,--“I vowed your death when once more we should stand face to face.
Now after many years that time has come. For--for----”
He seemed to choke with the words.
“Was he----?” I began softly.
“He was my only brother,” he replied, “and his death broke my mother’s
heart, and sent my father to an early grave.”
“’Twas the fortune of war,” I answered, but I had no heart to mock his
grief.
After a pause he went on.
“When the prisoners were taken,” he said, “I sought among them for you.
One day, to my joy, I saw you penned in with others like the cattle you
were. I hastened to the King to beg one boon: that you might be given or
sold to me. But Lord Cordwaine, curse him, was before me, and he had
chosen you among others that the King gave him. His Majesty dared not,
for reasons of policy, offend Lord Cordwaine, by making the change.
“I begged and pleaded with the lord that he would give you to me, but he
was short of purse, and had made a bargain to sell you as a slave. I had
not money enough or I would have been the buyer.
“Then came your sale to the slave dealer, and your escape from prison,
before Lord Cordwaine had delivered you to the purchaser. He secured a
royal warrant for your arrest, wherever you might be found, on the
charge of high treason. Fearful that you might escape my vengeance I
besought Lord Cordwaine to let me serve the document. Glad that he was
not to be out of pocket by the arrangement he consented. Since then I
have followed you from place to place, always arriving just as you had
gone. I lost track of you when you sailed for this land, but now I can
reap my reward.”
I know not what prevented me from springing at him then and ending it
all. I wish I had. Perhaps it was his devil’s coolness, or his mastery
over my feelings that held me to my chair. He proceeded after a pause,
not heeding that I had risen as he began again.
“When King James fled,” he went on, “I managed to acquire some influence
at the court of William and Mary. The warrant was renewed, though Lord
Cordwaine, to my joy, died in the meantime, and I knew I could have you
all to myself when I found you. So I continued my search, and now I have
found you--and Lucille.”
“What of Lucille?” I cried. “Would you drive me mad by harping on her
name, as if you had a right to use it? Speak, man. What are you to her,
or what is she to you? There is some mystery here, of which I have had
enough. Now out with it, or, warrant or no warrant, I’ll run you through
as I would a dog.”
“What of Lucille?” repeating my words in a sneering tone. Then changing
suddenly: “This of Lucille. That I love her better than life. Aye, I
love her more than I hate you, and God knows that hate is as wide and as
deep as the sea. I love her; I love her, and she loves me! For Lucille
de Guilfort is my wife!”